Thor was GREAT! —
I already Tweeted and FaceBooked, but I wanted to say it here. I really enjoyed it! The few people I've seen who didn't like it seem to have one thing in common: They wanted ALL ASGARD and no story. PLEASE, guys! 2 hours of CGI fight scenes would have been AWFUL! Ughh!
I've been pleasantly surprised with how good the Marvel movies have been, and I find myself looking forward to the next one. This, I'm sure, is a recipe for disappointment. I can't help it, though. My inner nerd is showing.
When the first "stinger" scene showed up at the end of The Incredible Hulk, I was astonished, and happily so. They were obviously setting about making a Marvel Universe in movieland, and being a Marvel fan as a kid, I was... intrigued. And already they've made it so you have to see the previous movie if you REALLY want to know what's going on! I love it!
Those of us who were smart enough to sit through the credit this time know what's coming next. IF we're Marvel readers, that is.
I have a question, though: What did YOU see in the briefcase? My friends and I agreed: It was empty. But we could GUESS, and we were right. I've seen cell-phone photos online, and astonishingly, SOME people saw something else entirely. Are there different prints circulating the theaters? Or was it only visible to the 3-D audience??
Tell me what YOU saw!
NOTE: There's already a couple of correct answers posted here, but in other forums, I see people making incorrect guesses. This brings up a good point: For people who have ONLY seen the movies and never read the comics, it's just a mystery. But for those of us who grew up reading Marvel, there's only ONE thing it could be...
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Scream 4 —
I recommend Scream 4. Every bit as good as the trilogy.
I should remind everyone of a couple of movie-going rules, though.
1) Go to the bathroom before the movie starts. (I didn't.)
2) Don't eat the cinema hot dog. (I did.)
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Hollywood Always Shits on Dick —
They do it every time. They take a Philip K. Dick story and make a movie that doesn't resemble it. I just saw Adjustment Bureau, the new Matt Damon movie, and I wasn't impressed.
A couple of review quotes I read beforehand summed it up nicely, I think:
- "If Frank Capra directed The Matrix."
- "A conversation starter for idiots."
And I would add:
- "How many times can you spot the microphone in the shot?"
Yeah, really... it was THAT unprofessional.
The problem with adapting Phil Dick stories is that they're usually really short and only meant to introduce an idea, and often they're just jokes, the hope being that you'll realize it's dumb to contemplate the implications because it's pointless. And we can't dismiss the fact that, like every writer of his ilk, Dick was writing mainly for the money. Enjoy it, but don't tell me it's DEEP. Cause it ain't.
Especially if you change it.
Just go read Dick's stories, okay?
P.S. - Dear movie-makers: Emily Blunt is lovely and appears to be a strong young actress, so you really oughtta give her some professional makeup attention. I mean, when the big pivotal scene arrives, I should NOT be thinking, "Oh, she doesn't look good." And the bruises on her arms shouldn't be the most memorable part of ANY scene.
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Read more...Megara —
I was watching Disney's Hercules last night. I'd forgotten how good that movie is. Megara has got to be my favorite Disney heroine (after Jessica Rabbit)!
Anybody who's familiar with the movie will know exactly what she's saying in this screen cap!
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'Megamind' was good! —
I wasn't planning on seeing Megamind at all. I never saw a preview that made me want to see it. Dreamworks makes bad movies, and Will Ferrell makes TERRIBLE movies, so I didn't see how this could possibly be any good. But when people I knew started giving it good reviews, I decided to give it a try. And you know what? It was GOOD! I mean, ACTUALLY ENTERTAINING! I laughed a lot! There were lots of little things I didn't expect, which is always good. So, I have to say... I recommend it!
The movie starts with Megamind falling to his death. His solution is brilliant! NOT something I would'a thought of! Hee!
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'Predators' was pretty good! —
I was pleasantly surprised! The first half hour was just a rehash of the original movie, with the cast of Lost thrown in. But then it got pretty interesting. I liked it!
I do have to complain, though, that there were a couple of important points in the movie when the CGI looked like something out of Xena or Buffy. Seriously? You gotta spend your money on the interesting parts, guys!
But I still liked it!
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They Done Bo Peep Wrong —
I saw Toy Story 3 tonight, and the more time goes by, the more I have to say about it. (There are spoilers left and right here!)
ONE: As I've said before, and I'm sure I'll have to say it again, the modern 3-D effects are impressive, even subtle and beautiful at times, but they contribute absolutely nothing to the movie. They just don't. I had to pay extra for the 3-D. It's not worth it.
TWO: Disney is now doing to their theatrical movies what they've been doing to their home videos for years. Over the last decade or so, we've all become accustomed to bombardment by commercials before the movie. Not just movie trailers, COMMERCIALS. For cars, soft drinks, TV shows, even the military... and often the very SAME commercials we've already seen on TV. But the one thing that's never changed is that after we see the "And Now Our Feature Presentation" bumper, the movie we paid to see actually starts. Well, tonight I saw something different. After the bumper, there were MORE commercials for other Disney movies. And they were in 3-D. They were not separate reels like the other previews, they were part of the feature. Just like every Disney VHS tape and every Disney DVD, where you can't skip or fast-forward through the commercials, the theater can no longer choose to go without previews. They are attached to reel 1. That's Disney.
THREE: The short cartoon called Day and Night was very interesting and innovative. This was one instance where the 3-D effect was used creatively and integrated into the very concept of the film. The characters were drawn in a throwback style reminiscent of the flat minimalism of early television or UPA animation. Their body outlines acted as 2-D portals through which we could see living 3-D worlds. It was very effective and impressive. Leave it to Pixar to create something new. The action of the film was sometimes risque and violent in surprising ways, again like animation of an earlier era. Very much worth seeing.
FOUR: And here's the meat of the review. Bo Peep was gone. Just gone. In the first movie, she was the love interest, and Barbie wasn't there. In movie two, Bo was there, but a lesser player, and Barbie had a cameo. Today, Bo is gone and Barbie is the heroine of a major sub-plot. Her own separate movie, really!
Throughout the film, the toys stressed over and over how they could not be separated because they were "family," they needed to be there for each other. The ONLY reference to Bo, however, was a single line. "Some of us didn't make it... like Bo." An afterthought.
Here's what I remember reading about the last movie. Pixar had approached Mattel about making Barbie the love interest for the first movie, but they declined, not understanding the brilliance of Pixar and the huge hit they were about to create. Pixar invented Bo Peep as a Barbie analog. For the sequel, Mattel had to eat crow and ask nicely for whatever they could get. Pixar gave them a cameo, but made it clear that Barbie was NOT a major player.
And today... I don't know what happened. All the toys acted like Barbie was one of them and always had been. While I was watching the film, I didn't think about it, I just enjoyed it. But afterward, it started to sink in. Something changed. Bo was pointedly written out. Barbie was redacted in.
Oh, she was FUNNY! Her scenes were some of the biggest laughs of the movie, especially her scenes with Ken. (Cue Gary Wright's Dream Weaver.) Yes, Ken was there, and it was hilarious. "You ascot-wearing pink-noser!" says Rickles Potato Head. "You're not a toy, you're an accessory!" Brilliant! Merciless!
But there's a bad taste in mouth now. They done Bo WRONG!
FIVE: Where were the songs? I remember the other movies having good songs.
SIX: Was it me? Or was there something... how can I say it... oddly sexual about Jessie this time? I like Jessie, I think everybody does. But she's NOT sexual. When she was introduced in the last movie, it was with a sigh of relief (a least on my part) that we saw a non-romantic character, just another toy with owner-abandonment issues, another symbol of Pixar's unswerving dedication to doing-what-the-story-needs-above-all-else. She's Woody's partner toy, not relationship material. They went out of their way to design Jessie with no shape at all, just a flat cloth bag. She's NOT Barbie, and deliberately so.
But when Buzz turned on his Spanish language circuits, and became a sort of aggressive, romantic bullfighter who couldn't resist pawing at Jessie... she RESPONDED! It was weird. And funny. I don't know if I liked it.
SEVEN: What county landfill has an incinerator that's built like Dante's Inferno? The world of Toy Story, aside from the living toys, is starkly realistic. The whole dump scene was too much.
EIGHT: Chuckles!
NINE: Bonnie, the toys' new owner, is something special! This is what Pixar does best. They can make you cry at will. And they DO.
Even with all this philosophizing, I recommend TS3. Go see it! Support good movies!
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One of the major plot-lines involved a situation/outcome that I would usually interpret as intolerably "Christian pro-life," but in this film it didn't strike me that way. I don't know why, really. Maybe the rest of the film was just too good.
The thing that floored me most was when Andy Griffith appeared suddenly as the cantankerous old restaurant owner. If he was in the opening credits, I totally missed it, so it was a complete surprise for me. I love it when that happens. And he was funny all the way through the film.
In case you need some incentive to bother with it, that guy from Firefly is also in the movie. What's his name? Nathan Fillion, yeah.
And you should read the WikiPedia about the writer/director, too.
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If you've never seen Xanadu, GO GET IT. It's the greatest of the worst movies ever made. And it's a MUSICAL!
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But then I read that this was Burton's highest-grossing film AND the highest-grossing of 2010 so far. Really? REALLY?? Okay, so I had to see WHY. And I wasn't at all surprised. It's just another bad, aimless Tim Burton film. WHY do people like this shit? WHY does Burton have a reputation as a great director?? The last Burton film I enjoyed was Beetlejuice, for Christ sake. (No, wait, I liked Ed Wood.) And I think, hands down, his BEST film is Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. Yeah, that's right, his FIRST! It's been downhill for me ever since.
There are a lot of problems with re-writing or updating children's stories, and Alice is the WORST choice. The Alice stories have NO plot, NO moral, NO conflict resolution and NO character development. Anyone who wants to update or adapt them has to INVENT it all, and it fails every time. The idea that the Cheshire Cat or the Mad Hatter would ally themselves to a cause or share ANY motivations with ANYONE for ANY reason is enough to shout "FAIL!" Every character in Alice exists only as a pun or just to look silly. They are one-dimensional. They are JOKES. Burton fails to make them sympathetic, just like everybody fails when they try it.
And Burton does one thing in particular that really peeves me. Listen, Tim... (deep breath) ...the Queen of Hearts and the Red Queen ARE NOT THE SAME CHARACTER!!!!!!!! They don't even appear in the SAME BOOK! JEEZ!!!
...and then there's all the typical Burton complaints: too much CGI, no color, unlikeable characters, over-done music, wasted talent, poor ending and (all together now) HELENA BONHAM CARTER!!!!
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I thought it was quite well-written, too! What's everybody talking about?? The interaction between Tony Stark and Pepper Potts was tremendous! And the way Favreau (the director / Happy Hogan) had the conversations banging away a mile-a-minute, lines falling on top of one another, multiple conversations happening at once... I found it thrilling! Like live theater!
I don't know why people thought the plot was thin, either. The history of Iron Man / Tony Stark is all about his struggle to control his technology AND his addictions. Both of these movies have covered the subject well. What's the problem??
I liked it!
* Let me explain. I grew up reading comics, so I care about them. I would LOVE it if comic book movies were good, but they almost never are. That's why I don't like them. I'd LIKE to like them, but I can't.
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Sunday Bloody Sunday --
I saw an AWFUL movie last night called Sunday Bloody Sunday. You'd think, with a title like Sunday Bloody Sunday, something interesting would happen. It didn't. It was senseless, pointless, went in circles, went nowhere... and then just ended. Not a single likeable character. Even the little kids were assholes.
Do you want to see Peter Finch in bed with another man? If your answer is YES PLEASE, then find a copy of Sunday Bloody Sunday.
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